Page 82 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘Though come on, right, is he not the most handsome little bubba you’ve ever seen?’ Beth smiles through her tears while Meg studies my face as I take it all in. Does she see the glow? Because this really does make my heart hurt with joy. I helped a family make a baby. While I was trying to take on the world, I did something good in these last ten years, I tried to do something good, for balance.
‘How many other of Lucy’s eggs have been turned into babies?’ Meg asks, making it sound as if they’ve been grown from the ground like the cutest of potatoes. She has a point though. Is the doctor going to bring out a catalogue of babies that I’ve enabled? Are they on every continent?
‘Three, Oscar being one of them.’
My eyes widen for a moment. ‘So I’m basically building an army.’
‘Of sorts. You used to joke and call them your minions.’
‘That’s quite a scary thought, Lucy. Three little babies out there running around just like you. God help the world,’ Meg mutters.
I pause for a moment. The enormity of the situation, the consequences, feels huge but it’s countered by the fact that out there, a couple – a few couples – got to start a family, have a baby. I don’t care if they inherit none of me but just to have let them borrow my biology feels good.
‘Are you OK, hun?’ asks Beth as I sit there staring at the baby picture in my hands.
‘Do you think I can meet him?’ I ask Dr Jacobs. Meg and Beth look at each other anxiously. ‘I know the boundaries, I’m just curious.’
‘I can certainly ask. I’m glad you’re OK, Lucy,’ he says, putting his hand in mine.
‘Oscar. That’s a good name.’
And for a moment, my mind wanders to this baby of mine, who isn’t really mine at all. And I’m holding him and kissing him on the forehead before I hand him over.Hey, kid. Go take on the world and have a shitload of fun. Ask all the questions, drink all the drink, laugh and love so very hard but only the right people because there are a lot of douches out there. You don’t belong to me in any shape or form but, by god, you are real and you are destined for greatness. Oscar. That’s a really really good name.
‘Lucy… Lucy?’
And as my mind wanders, something weird starts happening. It’s strange because I can feel Dr Jacobs’ hand in mine but I can’t. Why can’t I bend my fingers? Grab his hand, come on, Luce. His hand is right there. I look down at my hand but it doesn’t seem to be mine. I open my mouth to speak and can’t make the sound come out, my jaw feels loose, numb. Come on, Luce. Speak. But the feeling extends to my right eye, to my neck. Fuck. Breathe, Lucy. Tell them you can’t feel anything.
I can hear Meg screaming as my body collapses into itself.Get out into reception and tell them we need an ambulance here, immediately.Beth scrambles out of the room, her handbag dropping to the floor and its contents tumbling out. Sweets everywhere. Don’t waste the sweets.Lucy? What’s wrong? I think she’s having a stroke of some description. Lucy! Don’t you dare, come on. I’m here. It’s me, Meg. I’m here.I feel her hands gripped around me, her breath to my cheek.Doctor, please. I don’t know what to do. We need to lie her down.There’s a sharp pain to my head, an excruciating pain, and my body suddenly loses control of itself.I think she’s having a seizure. Control her neck. LUCY! CAN YOU HEAR ME?I want to say yes, so very loudly. I want to scream it. I’m here. I’ve always been here.
19
My head feels like someone is sitting on it. The last time I felt like this was in Ibiza. I had one of those nights where I ended up in a bar in a wrestling ring, wearing a bikini. There was a sea of foam involved, The Weeknd in the background, a Viking hat and an inflatable palm tree that I’d stolen from the garden of someone’s villa. I wrestled a very skinny lad from Sunderland who tried to sit on my actual head so I flipped him over, trapped his bony arse in a body scissors move and it took four grown men to pull me off him. I won a voucher for a free seafood dinner that evening, and a medal that I lost in the sea.
Hold up.
Ibiza.
2015.
I was supposed to be on a yoga retreat. That didn’t last long. I stole the goat. I went into town and just checked myself into a hotel, partied and drank and joined a hen party. Laura from Wigan was marrying Jamie. Don’t tell Jamie but Laura had a bloody amazing send-off. We really did pay tribute to her single life for one last time. One morning at that hotel, I went to the breakfast buffet and threw up in a serving dish full of French toast.I remember.Lucy remembers little details like these for posterity but also for the anecdotes.She remembers.I really do bloody remember. I’d jump up and do a jig if my head didn’t hurt this much.
‘Mum,’ I whisper.
It’s the unmistakeable silhouette of Mum’s bob haircut that I see first and she drops whatever she’s reading onto the bed in shock.
‘Lucy?’ she whispers.
‘Yeah. That’s me.’
She grabs my hand tightly and kisses me on the forehead. ‘I need to get someone, wait…’
‘No, don’t. Just stay here for a moment.’
It’s normally quite difficult to get my mum to do what I say but she stays, the grip on my hand tight. I feel it all but, compared to last time, my brain feels like it’s been picked up and shaken around like a snow globe, the flakes settling.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘There was a blood clot, they went in and removed it but it explained a lot, it was hidden, pressing against lobes or something. Emma can explain it better than me but it was why your memory had gone. It was just bloody lucky you were in a doctor’s office when it happened.’
